Creating a Contact Form

In this tutorial, we'll look at creating a Contact Form using Umbraco Forms. It will take you through the process of creating a Contact Form and cover all the different components involved in building the form.

You can use a Contact Form on your website to allow a visitors to send you a message. Having a Contact Form on your website allows you to keep track of potential customer queries and possibly generate leads via email communication.

Video Tutorial

Creating a Contact Us Form using Umbraco Forms

Step 1: Configure the Document Types

The first step in this tutorial is to configure the Document Types that will be used to show the Contact Form on your website.

Creating a Composition

We'll start off by creating a Composition. A Composition is a stand-alone Document Type, that you can reuse on other Document Types. By creating a Composition, we are not duplicating the same properties on multiple Document Types. This is helpful when we want to use the same set of properties on multiple Document Types.

To create a Composition, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Expand the Document Types folder in the Settings tree.

3. Select ... next to the Compositions folder.

4. Click Create.

5. Select Document Type.

6. Enter a Name for the Composition- let's call it Title Box.

7. Add the following fields with the respective specifications:

   Group	Field Name	Alias	Data Type
   Title Box	Title	title	Textstring
   Title Box	Subtitle	subtitle	Textarea

8. Click Save to save the Composition.

   

   Add Composition Properties

Creating a Contact Us Document Type with Template

Next, we will create a Document type with template. A Document Type contains different properties for holding different types of content. The Document Type we create here will be the one used for creating the content page that will hold our Contact Form.

To create a Contact Us Document Type, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Select ... next to the Document Types folder.

3. Click Create.

4. Select Document Type with Template.

5. Enter a Name for the Document Type- let's call it Contact Us.

6. Select Compositions in the top-right corner.

7. Select Title Box.

8. Click Submit.

9. Add the following fields with the respective specifications:

   Group	Field Name	Alias	Data Type
   Form	Contact Form	contactForm	Form Picker
   Content	Body Text	bodyText	Richtext Editor

10. Click Save.

    

    Contact Us Document Type Properties

Updating the Document Type Permission

In the following we will update the Document Type permissions to specifically add child nodes under the root content node.

To update the Contact Us Document Type permissions, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Document Type used for the root content node on your website, in this case Home page.

2. Go to the Structure tab.

3. Select Choose in the Allowed child node types section.

4. Select the Contact Us page.

   

   Update Home Page Document Type Properties
5. Click Choose.

6. Click Save.

Step 2: Prepare the Content Node

This step takes you through creating the content node for your Contact Form. The content node uses the Document Type and Template to serve up an HTML page to web visitors.

To add the content node, follow these steps:

1. Go to Content in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Select ... next to the Home Page.

3. Click Create.

4. Select Contact Us.

5. Enter the name for the content node. let's call it Contact Us.

6. Enter a Title, Subtitle, and Body Text value. These can always be updated at a later point.

   

   Enter values in Contact Us Content node
7. Click Save or Save and Publish.

Step 3: Creating the Contact Form

In this step, we will create the Contact Form using Umbraco Forms.

To create a form, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Forms section in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Click ... next to the Forms folder.

3. Click Create.

4. Select New Form....

5. Enter a Name for the Form. Let's call it Contact Us.

6. [Optional] Enter a Page Name and Group Name for the Data Consent statement. Let's call it Data Consent.

7. Click Add new group. Let's call it Information.

8. Select Add Question to add a new field.

9. Enter the following details:

   Field Name	Value
   Enter question	Name
   Alias	fullName
   Choose answer type	Short answer
   Field Type	text
   Mandatory	On

10. Click Submit.

11. Repeat steps 8-10 to add the following fields:

    Field Name	Value
    Enter question	Company Name
    Choose answer type	Short answer

    Field Name	Value
    Enter question	How should we contact you?
    Choose answer type	Single choice
    Prevalues Items	phone, email
    Mandatory	On

    Field Name	Value
    Enter question	Enter your phone number
    Choose answer type	Short answer
    Field Type	tel
    Validation	Validate as a number

12. Enable Conditions in the Enter your phone number field.

13. Click Add Condition.

14. Select How should we contact you? from the dropwdown.

15. Select phone in the value field.

16. Click Submit.

17. Repeat steps 8-10 to add the following field:

    Field Name	Value
    Enter question	Enter your email address
    Choose answer type	Short answer
    Field Type	email
    Validation	Validate as an email address

18. Enable Conditions in the Enter your email address field.

19. Click Add Condition.

20. Select How should we contact you? from the dropwdown.

21. Select email in the value field.

22. Click Submit.

23. Repeat steps 8-10 to add the following field:

    Field Name	Value
    Enter question	What is your role?
    Choose answer type	Dropdown
    Prevalues Items	manager, developer, tester, writer, marketing specialist

    Field Name	Value
    Enter question	Attachments (if any)
    Choose answer type	File upload
    Predefined allowed file types	pdf, png, jpg, gif, txt

    Field Name	Value
    Enter question	Are you a Robot?
    Choose answer type	reCAPTCHAv2
    Theme	light
    Size	normal
    Mandatory	On

    

    Add questions
24. Select the Reorder option.

25. Drag the Data consent group below the Information group.

26. Click I am done reordering.

27. Click Save.

Configuring the Form Workflow

Workflows is how you determine what you happen after your form is submitted. It could be actions like sending an email or displaying a "Thank You" message.

To configure the Form workflow, follow these steps:

1. Select the Submit message/ Go to page options in the bottom of the Forms editor.

2. Enter a customised message in the Message on Submit field.

3. Click Submit.

4. Click on Send template email to [e-mail].

5. Enter an email address in the Sender Email field.

6. By default, the Example-Template.cshtml template will be selected in the Email template field.

7. Enable Attach Uploaded Files.

8. Click Submit.

9. Click Save.

Configuring the Form Settings

In this step, you will find the information about accessing the Forms Settings and the validations available to customise your form.

To configure the form settings, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Settings tab in the Forms editor.

2. Scroll to find the Validation section.

3. Ensure that the Mark Mandatory fields option is checked under Mark fields.

4. Click Save.

There are multiple settings that be configured. These are all optional in relation to this tutorial.

Step 4: Adding the Contact Form to the Content Node

Now that you have created your Contact Form, you can add it in the Contact Us Content Node using the Form Picke Data Type.

To add the Contact Form to the Content Node, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Content section in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Open the Contact Us Page.

3. Select Choose in the Contact Form field.

4. Select the Insert Form with Theme option.

5. Select the Contact Us Form.

6. Click Choose.

   

   Adding the Contact Us Form
7. Click Save or Save and Publish.

Step 5: Additional configuration

In the next couple of steps, we will add some additional configuration required in order for our form to work properly.

Configuring the reCAPTCHA value

You need to update the configuration to include a value in the appsettings.json file.

To configure the reCAPTCHA value, see the reCAPTCHA configuration article.

Configuring Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

By adding the SMTP settings in the appsettings.json file, you can send out emails from your Umbraco installation. It is required in order for your form to be able to send emails on submission.

To configure the SMTP settings, see the Global Settings article.

Step 6: Rendering the Contact Form

In this step, we will render the values of the Contact Us Document Type in the template.

To render the Contact Form, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Settings section in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Open the Contact Us template in the Templates folder.

3. Enter the following code to render the form:

   @using Umbraco.Forms.Web.Helpers;
   @await Component.InvokeAsync("RenderForm", new { formId = Guid.Parse("<form guid>"), FormTheme = "bootstrap3-horizontal", ExcludeScripts = "1" })

Replace **<form guid>** with the ID of your form. You can find the ID in the Form's **Info** tab.

4. Select Insert.

5. Click Value.

6. Select Document Type from the Choose field dropdown.

7. Select Contact Us.

8. Click Choose.

9. Select bodyText from the Contact Us dropdown.

10. Click Submit.

11. Click Save.

For Umbraco Forms to work correctly, you need to include some client dependencies. For more information, see the Preparing Your Frontend article.

The final result

Finally, it is time to view the Contact Form on the frontend.

To view the Contact Form on the Frontend, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Content section in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Open the Contact Us Page.

3. Ensure that the page is published.

4. Go to the Info tab.

5. Click on the Published link in the Links section.

You now have a full-fledged Contact Form ready to be used on your website.